Tag: Benedict XVI

Pope Francis offered Monday’s Mass for his Predecessor on his birthday

Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI still enjoys a strong mind at age 91, assured Archbishop Georg Gänswein, the private secretary of the former pontiff who is also prefect of the Pontifical Household.

While his strength is lessened, he remains in a good mood, and enjoys good company, the archbishop added, speaking ahead of a presentation of a documentary on the German Pontiff, shown at the Vatican Film Library.

The Emeritus Pope was just then praying the rosary in the Vatican Gardens, Gänswein said.

This evening, the band of the Pontifical Swiss Guard was to play in honor of the Pope Emeritus at the Mater Ecclesiae monastery where he resides.

And this morning, Pope Francis offered his morning Mass in the Casa Santa Marta for the intention of his Predecessor.

Like this:

In a rare new letter penned by Benedict XVI, the retired pontiff said he is in the last phase of his life, and while his physical strength might be waning, he is surrounded by a “love and goodness” that he never imagined.

“I can only say that at the end of a slow decline in physical strength, inwardly I am on pilgrimage home,” Benedict XVI said in the letter, published Feb. 7 in Italian daily Corriere della Sera.

He said that “it’s a great grace for me to be to be surrounded in this last piece of the road, which is at times a bit tiring, by a love and goodness that I could never have imagined.”

Benedict addressed the letter to Italian journalist Massimo Franco of Corriere della Sera, who was charged with the task of presenting the retired pontiff with letters expressing concern and asking about his well-being five years after resigning from the papacy.